kjlindgr

Good news. I found both of the rings. One was secure in the Y-pipe, the other had become dislodged from it's original location, but was still fully intact. One more reason to never use this dumb intake.

I stuck a flashlight as far inside the supercharger as I could and spun the blades slowly to get an idea of what they looked like. All seemed good. No chunks missing or anything that looked out of the ordinary. I also peeked into the intercooler through the outlet Y-pipe. Nothing looked as though pieces had been fired through it. I'm going to pull it off anyway I guess and inspect things through the under side as well.

Maybe I got lucky and my supercharger is still good. I've got to catch a break sometime, right?

C32madness

Looking at all of the oil on the piston tops makes me think that is what caused the detonation. It does not take much oil to make that happen.

kjlindgr

Still nothing from the engine rebuilder. The suspense of the "damage" is killing me. It's only been 2 days but seems forever.

On a side note, my FD made the April 2010 cover of Super Street:

emoving

Congrats on the mag cover! Hopefully you get the 55 up to speed again!

kjlindgr

Thanks. I was prepared for a lengthy turnaround period knowing custom pistons were at least a 4 week lead time...but It's going to be a rough waiting period. With nicer weather just around the corner here in the midwest, I'm itching to put the diesel truck away. Ugh.

I know Super Street might be a little "mainstream import" for most of you guys though.

slownrusty

Congrats on the Super Street cover...amazing achievement. Your RB FD is world famous...but you know that.

Yasin

kjlindgr

Here's a bit of an update on the E55 motor situation:

I sent the ECU off to Cory at Kleemann and he confirmed that the computer had indeed been tampered with. He said that the tune on it presently was completely stock, but that it had a quick-disconnect chip socket on it and was in fact tampered with. This means that some crappy Merc tuner out there had their dick-beaters all over it, hurt the engine, then sold it to auction only to be picked up by a stealership in Chicago and my dumbass to then buy it. Live and learn I guess.

Anyway, MAD PROPS to Cory at Kleemann for helping me out. They are top notch!

I sent the block to Millennium Technologies to have them look at it. They do Nikasil coating as well as a lot of work with Alusil bores so I felt they were a good shop to be doing the work. I was originally going to have them Nikasil coat it, but decided to bore it 0.040" over and stick with the stock bore material. They contracted with CP to get pistons made. It took FOREVER to get them back, but they finally arrived.







The pistons were then shipped to Swain Tech to have the domes ceramic coated and the skirts coated with something which vibed well with the Alusil bores:








None of the mainstream piston manufacturers made top-guided forgings so custom shims were then made. I don't remember what they said they were made out of, but they look like bronze...but they aren't. They said they'll outlast the engine so there's no issue running them. The stock pistons have a 0.003" tolerance on the top end, so these shims were needed to make up the difference between the wide piston forging and the connecting rod top end.




Here's the block all cleaned up and looking like a million bucks again:






The block is now at the engine shop getting the rotating assembly put together. I'll put the heads on, timing chain, and all the drive accessories when it returns.

Hope to get this puppy back on the road within the next couple weeks!!

blackbenzz

Awesome! Since CP now has the specs, can they make another set of these? Did you change the c/r?

kjlindgr

I'm sure they can make another set. The shims were not made by them though. Millennium made those in house.

The pistons were made to the same spec as the stockers, but since the bore size increased, the compression ratio was raised a wee bit. Cory compensated for this with the custom Kleemann tune.

lowprofile

Nice! You are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

tgoss

That's good to hear, anxious to see what all comes of the 55k after reading about your FD in SS.

VCA_AMG

Awesome work kj...new pistons look badass.

So here's what we all want to know...

Do you plan to swap out the "AMG Handcrafted By" plate with one that has YOUR name on it now?

stevebez

Wow ... tough process to go through.

I am amazed the head di not see the same pitting as the piston crowns - lets hope they are OK. Wonder if the motor did not have a sparkeplug piece break off in it. Seems suitable type of thing to cause the crown piston damage and mbe a piece got shoved down the sides and crammed the rings up. The S/P metal is pretty soft (electrode part anyway) and that may have been munched without too much damage...

Are all the plugs in the car the same? That might be a clue. Mbe previous owner was too tight to spring for 16 new ones.

Nice pistons btw... what is it with precision machined metal? Can look at it forever.

kjlindgr

I was thinking that some of the dings could have been made from spark plug parts, but when I removed them, they were all the same and they were all intact. That's really the only thing I could think which would have made those marks unless someone physically dropped something into the hole. They were NGK's so I know it wasn't serviced at a stealership with genuine Merc parts.

The head had a couple dings in it too like the piston top. I had the heads decked 0.007" to remove any high spots which would cause hot spots. They don't look the prettiest, but they won't cause issues either.




mugatu22:
Not sure if your comment was made in jest, but funny you should mention that. Yes, the name plate is being changed.


tgoss:
Thanks for the complements on the FD. I do have some plans for the E55 too.

stevebez

Titanium valves? or is that ceramic coating?

kjlindgr

Unfortunately, nothing quite that fancy. All stock valve train parts. Not sure what's up with the dark finish on them though.

I had the heads fully ported and polished as well as the intake passages that are molded to the side of the supercharger. Should help it flow just a little better. The machine shop also recut all the valve seats just to make sure they seated well. With all the burnt oil and chunks of crap flowing out of them, I wanted to make sure they got cleaned up again.

stevebez

Should be solid once again and glad to see you are getting her sorted!

How much have the dealers helped you out here - you mentioned something about warranty earlier in the thread?

slownrusty

I bet those pistons were not cheap but sweet! Amazing how they have a fairly low skirt and short profile.

Subscribed for the rebuild.

Still confused where those shims are placed?

Will you doing to do any headwork...I am unfamiliar as to the casting quality of these 3valve heads and would be interested to see if some clean-up would help improve flow.

stevebez

Yes - sounds like it goes on the top of the conrod where the pin goes through the piston and conrod ... the area/gap between the sides of the conrod and the piston itself. This would be my only area of cencern is you have the potential of these busting off but there are not that many latteral forces on the conrod and its also held true by the crank bearing... just hope these dont wear down too much - certainly hope they not copper!

Pity the pistons were not a solid fit to the rods.

citylightva

+1 It's a beautiful thing..! The pistons are too

AMGfan

[QUOTE=slownrusty;4146441]I bet those pistons were not cheap but sweet! [QUOTE]

For reference...the OEM pistons that were bought for my rebuild were $750 a piece.

kjlindgr

Even with a dealership discount, pistons are $620 a pop from Mercedes...unclear if this even comes with rings or wrist pins. These CP jobbies were about $1800 for the set with coating. Quite the price difference.

As mentioned earlier, the shims go on both sides of the connecting rod top-end with the wrist pin going through the middle. None of the mainstream piston manufacturers have forgings small enough to exclude the use of shims. I checked. The stock AMG pistons are made by Mahle, but good luck getting them to knock out a set for you.

The shims aren't bronze and they aren't copper. I'd be guessing at what they really are since I don't remember. For some reason beryllium bronze/copper comes to mind...but again, this is only a guess. The specific alloy was chosen for this application because of its wear and stress resistant properties. It's meant to withstand the stresses of the engine and the life of it. I can only say that the engineer at Millennium assured me it was a solid fix for the gap issue and has been done many times before with great success.

I didn't check with any dealers for help on the motor. I don't want OEM pistons in the car any longer.

As far as additional head work, the head was completely ported and polished as well as the intake runners attached to the supercharger. The casting wasn't too bad, but it's much smoother now. No valve work was done aside from regrinding the seats and touching up the valves.

AMGfan

I could have used your MB discount.... Good luck on the rebuild! Keep us posted...we all can learn a lot especially regarding parts and what can be done to our engines.

J

VCA_AMG

LOL, yes it was made partially in jest but also in hopes you WOULD put your name on it. Cheers

BC928

This is a strange picture as that is NOT what alusil looks like when prepped properly.